Will Counseling: Will Hunting? Confrontation?

In the third therapy session, Will opens up to Sean about his girlfriend, informing him that he hasn’t called his girlfriend after their first date. He says, “ this girl is perfect right now, I don’t want to ruin that”, and Sean replies back, “ can it be you’re perfect right now, maybe you don’t want to ruin that…that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to ever know anybody.” Sean cracks Will up with the funny experiences in Seans life. He shares his experiences of his dead wife with Will, how they were beautiful and extraordinary. He uses his experiences to explain and give an example towards Will’s life and his decisions. Will restates the exact same phrase Sean uses towards him, just before times up.
The audience
Confrontation. We see during their first therapy session how Sean tries to connect with Will with the similarities they both share, being both brought up and from the same area and culture as he provides shared experiences. Self disclosure. This can stimulate the bond, attachment, and relationship between Sean and Will as a counselor and a client, as attachments are usually formed with similarities and common backgrounds. Sean provides Will with open-ended questions so that he is able to understand Will more. Wisdom. The cultural understanding that Sean has of Will helps him find his method of counseling, as factors such as culture can influence the counseling styles of the counselor towards the client. Because Will is an extremely complex and difficult person to understand, it is extremely essential for this to happen. As Will described the painting, he see Wills actual perspective upon what he sees within the painting, which is nothing but negative. This shows Will as a person and helps Sean understand that. Sean’s ability to show empathy towards Will is another reason why Sean was able to make a positive connection with Will. Because Will never had a caregiver, Sean is replaced into that position, which creates trust between their professional relationships. Sean takes Will to the park, which indicates a new, out of the office, environment for the both of them to
What are things he would need from a counselor to be successful? As a counselor, if Will was one of my clients, I would try to use the same therapeutic methods that Sean used, although culturally, both counselor and client extremely diverse in culture. As an Asian counselor, I would have to understand and be aware of the cultural differences: his culture, his values, beliefs, and his mindset. Because Will Hunting is completely closed off in the ability to connect and maintain relationships, and attachments, it would be difficult for the counselor to understand him. Open-ended questions could be possible to help Will spell out his life and become self aware of himself. There are many different possibly theories that could be used to help Will become self aware of his